Is Barcelona the Smartest City in the World?
as appeared in “FutureStructure”
by Laura Adler
February 19, 2016

This story was originally published on Data-Smart City Solutions.

Cities around the world are beginning to understand the huge potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). In Barcelona, those possibilities have started to become the reality. Starting in 2012, the city deployed responsive technologies across urban systems including public transit, parking, street lighting, and waste management. These innovations yielded significant cost savings, improved the quality of life for residents, and made the city a center for the young IoT industry.

Spain was among the countries hardest hit by the 2008 recession, and recovery t…

Leon Sykes has eight children at home, works two jobs, and drives for Uber and Lyft on the side. Yet the 34-year-old father has found time to take classes Monday through Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. to earn his high-school credentials at Academy of Hope, an adult public charter school in Washington, D.C. Sykes is about two years into the program. His wife usually picks up their children, ages 5 to 15, from after-school activities, but he still can’t always make it to class. “Some days, you just have to pick and choose,” he says.

About one in 10 low-income parents participate in education and training courses, according to a 2014 report by th…

On the heels of Earth Day, in a continuing effort to make the District of Columbia the healthiest, greenest and most livable city in the country, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and city officials announced the opening of a new organic compost site Wednesday.

At the beginning of April, the Department of Public Works (DPW) began helping hotels, restaurants and grocery stores expand composting of organic waste. Since then, the Benning Road transfer station has collected more than 177 tons of food waste and transferred to a Richmond, Virginia compost facility.

“By composting this material, nutrients in the food are turned into s…

Installation of "water jets," or electrically cooled large water dispensers, in elementary and middle schools was linked to a small but statistically significant decline in mean body mass index among students, a large "quasi-experimental" study of New York City schools found.

Compared with a pre-installation baseline, mean BMI was lower by 0.025 points (95% CI -0.038 to -0.011) in boys and by 0.022 points in girls (95% CI -0.035 to -0.008) in schools that installed the water dispensers, after adjusting for changes seen in other schools that did not have the dispensers, reported Amy Ellen Sch…